The Minister of Works and Utilities Bradley Roberts had a “preferred list” in awarding contracts for the repairs of government schools this summer, Free National Movement Leader Tommy Turnquest charged Sunday. But Mr. Roberts believes the charges were only a “figment of Mr. Turnquest’s imagination” and “hold no water.”
Mr. Turnquest, who was a guest on the Love 97 radio programme Jones and Company, said, “If they thought that last year only FNM’s got it – which was not true – this year, there was a list handed down saying these are the people who you are to negotiate contracts with.”
He said, “There was no bidding, as there was bidding the previous year. All they did was negotiate contracts and to cover themselves, those contracts that were over $50,000 were sent to the tender’s board and those over $250,000 or $300,00 were sent to Cabinet. But they were all negotiated in house, no bids.”
Mr. Turnquest said “only those that were in the know, or those who know” appeared on the list.
The policymakers handed down the list to the technical officers and said, ‘negotiate with these people,’ without regard for whether they had done any work for the Ministry before, Mr. Turnquest said.
Mr. Roberts said it was true that some of these people had not done work for the Ministry before. But he said granting contracts only to people who had done work for the Ministry in the past, “speaks to the exclusion of others and a selective list by the previous administration.”
Mr. Turnquest said, “It was a closed shop. You heard all this talk, ask them to talk about that. There will be more of that coming out.”
Shortly after the programme aired, Mr. Roberts flatly denied the charges calling Mr. Turnquest a “seatless wonder.” He said he invites Mr. Turnquest to bring forward any more charges he may have regarding any alleged impropriety in the awarding of contracts.
Mr. Roberts said there was good reason why his
ﾠﾠministry did not go to bid before granting the contracts this summer. He said the bidding process practiced by the FNM government was “selective,” anyway.
“They would go through a process and award the contract to who they wanted to. This time, because of the time…I decided – and I want to make it clear to the Bahamian people – Bradley Robert decided that we needed to take a different approach if we were going to try and get those schools open,” Mr. Robert explained.
The Ministry of Education presented his Ministry with a list of what needed to be done in July, which contributed to the time constraint, he added.
Mr. Roberts said Ministry of Education officials and others nominated contractors and technical staff from the Ministry of Works came up with how much they thought the job would cost. Following this, he said, the nominated person was invited to come up with his price.
“Then they sat and they negotiated,” he said. “That is what took place. There is no secret about that. I have absolutely nothing to hide.”
Mr. Roberts made it clear that there was no favourtism involved in the granting of the contracts.
He said, “I even gave a fellow who was a big FNM fellow out of my constituency a job. I gave him one. The fellow on election day and before was dressed right down with FNM paraphernalia.”
In the case of Family Islands, he said local government leaders nominated persons they thought would be able to carryout the work.
He said his ministry was not successful in completing all of the school repairs over the summer, “but we did an excellent job in the time frame that we did have.”
Prior to the general election last year, Mr. Roberts joined with MP Tennyson Wells in strongly criticizing the then Minister of Education Dion Foulkes with granting school repair contracts for summer 2001 and handpicked FNM supporters to secure votes in the FNM leader elect contest.
